The One SNL Digital Short Music Video The Lonely Island Regrets Not Shooting
The Lonely Island (comprised of Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, and Jorma Taccone) made a name for themselves on "Saturday Night Live" by ushering in the SNL Digital Short era of the late night sketch comedy series. Once the breakout music video for "Lazy Sunday" became one of the earliest viral videos on YouTube (long before "SNL" sketches were officially uploaded to the video website), The Lonely Island felt the pressure of delivering hilarious pre-recorded bits almost every single week during their time on the show.
It should comes no surprise that their most successful bits were various music videos, often featuring rap or R&B tunes with a comedic touch (though the trio refers to their work as "frapping," fully acknowledging that it's "fake rapping"). This ranges from raunchy holiday fare like "D**k in a Box" with Justin Timberlake to the movie-fueled "Jack Sparrow" featuring "Office Space" punchline Michael Bolton as a major cinephile, the latter of which is Andy Samberg's favorite, as confirmed in a recent episode of The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast (a must-listen for "SNL" fans). But there's one music video that The Lonely Island members all regret not being able to shoot as an SNL Digital Short, and it would have made for quite an expensive production.
In fact, that was the whole point of creating the song in question to begin with.
The Lonely Island would have gone to Japan in an expensive fashion
On The Lonely Island's second album, titled "Turtleneck & Chain," there's a song called "Japan." Running exactly two and a half minutes, the song features the guys not quite singing and only really half-rapping about being in Japan. The premise of the video is that they actually just wrote this song solely because the label would have to pay for an extravagant music video depicting whatever they said. In case you need further clarification, here are the lyrics:
We're three cool white friends in Japan (Japan!)
We've never been to Japan
So we wrote a song about the three of us in Japan
And our label has to pay for it
Yep, that's it! In the September 26 episode of The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast, which focuses on the less-celebrated SNL Digital Short called "Dog Lover" (or "Talking Dog") with Zach Braff (it's somewhat difficult to find online, since it's not officially available, but you can watch it here), the boys and Meyers answer some questions that fans have proposed in recent weeks. One of them asks if there were any Lonely Island songs that they regret not being able to turn into music videos. All three of the guys agree that "Japan" was the one that got away, and it's simply because they wanted to shoot the unnecessarily expensive video that would have accompanied the song.
What happens in Japan would have been broadcast everywhere
Some of the pricey things The Lonely Island mention in the song include staying at the hotel from "Lost in Translation," eating at the most expensive sushi restaurant, and going to Tokyo Disneyland. There would have also been a quick trip to Hawaii for a single shot, just because the label would have to pay for it. Eventually, the song takes a slightly weirder turn, where they all decide to get super drunk and "buy some stinky used girls panties out of one of those pervert vending machines." Sounds about right. Eventually, they would have chucked Pokémon and a rental car into a river, along with a bunch of Yen, literally wasting money. You can hear all of their exploits in Japan in the full song:
Funnily enough, The Lonely Island's record label, Universal Records, would have actually paid for the music video to happen, and they were quite enthusiastic about it. Schaffer explained, "The craziest part is when we finished the song and turned it in the album, the head of the label was like, 'Let's do it. Let's make that happen.'"
So why didn't we get the "Japan" music video? Shaffer lamented, "We were just too busy, because we were back at 'SNL.'" Samberg and Taccone both agreed, "We blew it." But Samberg admits that, at the time, they had no idea what being busy truly actually was: "We've also talked about us probably having the conversation of like, 'We're just too busy,' and now that we have kids, being like, 'We weren't! We really should have done it.'"
But it's not as if The Lonely Island is retired. So maybe it's finally time for a trip to Japan.